Usher 6371 or 6381? Coffee table blocks woofer?

Toysnob, Relax, he's kidding. He's been to to many concerts and now he losing more than his hearing.

Newbee makes a good point regarding the way the two speakers will respond in-room.

Having owned both the 6381 and now the 6371's..I found that my room was better suited for the 71's.

The 81 is a very good speaker, but requires a fairly large room to properly place them. In my 19x22x8 room, and at a rather near field of 10 ft., they seemed to overwhelm the room with bass, and I used a variety of different SS and tube designs and varied sources. Additionally, the lower 8" driver didn't seem to seamlessly blend at that distance.

the 6371 to my ears is a more seamless and coherent sound that has a tighter bass presentation, without sacrificing the deep bass.

I think if your room is a medium size or what you would not concider "large" in space..you may be better off with the 71's performance.

You will want to bring them out from the front wall a minimum of 3-4 ft if you have the room to do so. A modest toe-in will give great imaging and a fuller, textural body to the mids and lower mids.

If you can't move the coffee table as you mentioned, it will not help eithers speakers performance of course, but Id look at room size and placement first in deciding on which model to use.

I don't have the room to bring these out 3-4ft from the wall, I need them as far up against the wall as their stands will allow.

Is that bad for their performance?

"Is that bad for their performance?"

Usually yes. In this location you will most often get boomy bass and a very flat sound stage effect. If you must put speakers very close to a rear wall I would suggest that you consider smaller monitor types which can use the bass reinforcement provided by the wall.

Yes....due to the rear port, you will likely have bass boom so close to the wall. I experimented placing the Ushers in many different positions. To really get the best from them you want to be away from the wall. In my room, I needed at least 27" from the front wall to the rear of the speaker,( 32" is optimal for me) otherwise the upper bass is excessive and the soundstage and center image collapses and becomes rather compressed or flat. All because of wall reienforcement.Like most good speakers, the Ushers will do best further out into the room.

A smaller stand mounted monitor can have suprisingly good bass and may be a better choice due to your constraints...Look for a monitor with front ports as opposed to rear or a sealed enclosure type if close wall placement is a must.- Ken